Sawgrass Mills is huge, with over 300 retailers! They have practically every store you can think of under the sun. We heard about it from that Calgarian couple we met on the cruise and thought we'd check it out because we had time to kill before we could check into our hotel. It's a combination of regular retailers and factory outlet stores. We found a few good deals, but with limited space in our suitcases we didn't go too crazy. After lunch at California Pizza, where we had a very yummy Thai salad and pepperoni pizza we drove to Miami to check into our hotel.
We are staying at the very swanky JW Marriott Marquis in the downtown core...again for free, thanks to points!!!! Our room is on the 37th floor with a view of the Biscayne Bay. The room is absolutely amazing with a comfy king bed, extra spacious bathroom that has a TV in the mirror. Never stayed in a hotel as luxurious as this one before. It's supposed to be ranked as one of the top hotels in the U.S. How lucky for us to get to stay here. The hotel has several cool amenities like a virtual bowling alley, a pool table, virtual golf driving range, and a yoga room. We also got turn down service and one evening a pair of slippers were placed on my side of the bed. I've never had slippers provided for at a hotel before, that was a neat treat!
We went for a nice evening walk to check out the surrounding area and found ourselves at the waterfront, walking through Bayfront Park. The area reminded us a little of home. There are luxury hotels and high-rise condo buildings all around with some very expensive yachts moored along the seawall. The promenade was busy with people out enjoying the evening warmth. We found a little shopping area with restaurants and one was playing some latin music and had people dancing. We ended up with take-out from a Mediterranean Grill and brought it back to the hotel to eat later. The food was typical Lebanese food and really good. We had hummus, stuffed grape leaves, tabbouleh, and falafels.
Monday started off as partly cloudy and gave us a chance to sit by the pool for awhile before it started dripping from the sky. It soon opened up to full rain showers so we stayed indoors and enjoyed the hotel for a couple hours. Why not take advantage of this awesome hotel in this case? We went to the gym and spent some time on the treadmill; this time it was much easier being on stable ground. Perhaps Mother Nature was also trying to prepare us for the weather we're likely to experience when back home.
Once the sky cleared up some we ventured out to explore a little. We found a TD Bank not too far from the hotel. We went to a little shopping area called Mary Brickwell village. There wasn't too much interesting there so we decided to hop on the Metromover (a skytrain like system) which takes you around the downtown area for free. It was a neat way to get around and see downtown which consists of a lot of really tall skyscrapers.
In the evening we drove to South Beach for dinner. This trendy area is popular for its restaurants and nightclubs. We found parking along the busy Ocean Drive and walked to the very large beach. The water was still quite warm at dusk; it would have been perfect swimming water, clear with a sandy bottom. We found a Peruvian restaurant, Goyo El Pollo, for dinner and enjoyed some traditional Causas Rellena de Pollo (potato and chicken appie) and Lomo Saltado (beef, onion, tomato dish) with rice and french fries, both of which brought back great memories from a previous trip.
Oh yeah, we also enjoyed free breakfast and evening drinks and snacks in the concierge lounge as a benefit of Z's frequent stays at Marriott hotels. What a nice little perk!
View from our hotel room
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